“Dense without being heavy, intelligent without being esoteric, this is elegant, nuanced music that has been finely crafted and richly woven.”
Glenn Kimpton, Folk Radio UK
“His music is full of pangs for his home country, the guitar playing of people like Bert Jansch and Ry Cooder, as well as British ambient influences like Brian Eno and Lamb. It’s atmospheric and it bends around and into some of those traditional Southern folk rhythms and echoes across the Appalachian Mountains.”
Elizabeth Alker, BBC Radio 3
I’m a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer. I was born and raised in Kentucky, then played music and worked in recording studios in and around New York City before moving to the UK. I currently split my time between East London and East Devon, one very urban, one very rural.
And now…
… I’m happy and excited to announce that I have a new album coming out July 26. It’s called You Are Here, and is a collection of songs that began during the pandemic but were developed and finished over the last six months. The past few years have seen some tough times for everyone; I lost people I loved, and severed connection to places that meant a great deal to me. The songs on the album reflect those experiences, as well as the sense of hope that got us all through those times. In a (small) break from Unsung, there’s one vocal track on You Are Here. Several of the songs feature the LA-based cellist Michelle Packman, continuing the thread of incorporating strings into what I do that started with Unsung. London-based acoustic bassist Reggie Jones also contributed some excellent playing. Most everything was recorded in my small studio in Devon; the studio in France is no longer, and dearly missed, but life goes on. The crew at SI Studios in scenic Old Forge, Pennsylvania, where I mixed my album Marginal Street back in the day, gave me a hand as well: Tom Borthwick mastered the release, and Wiggy, engineer extraordinaire, served as a better pair of ears than I’ll ever have as I worked on the mixes. There will be a few singles coming out before the album, so keep an eye (and ear) out for those. I hope you enjoy the music; I certainly enjoyed making it.
Trivia: I’ll be posting some guitar and recording details for the nerdy among us. And the background for the cover is a closeup of an old paint thinner can from my grandfather’s sign painting shop, proving once again that abstract expressionism is where you find it.
Archives
I released two singles, “Early Dark” and “It’s Like This”, and an EP, My Own Devices, in 2020; they received airplay across the UK, including BBC Radio 6 (Gideon Coe) and Radio 3 (Elizabeth Alkerman and Lopa Kothari). The following full-length album, Unsung, was released on January 29, 2021, and enjoyed an enthusiastic reception: Album of the Month on Folk Radio UK, and airplay on BBC Radio3 and Radio6.
My music spans genres, incorporating country and soul music from Kentucky, along with influences ranging from Miles Davis, to Talk Talk, to King Tubby.
I collaborated with Irish new-folk singer/songwriter/harpist Brona McVittie on two albums and many live performances from 2016 through 2020. I played steel on and co-produced her album The Man in the Mountain, which was included in the Guardian’s Top Ten folk releases of 2020.
I’ve released a number of songs with videos over the past few years; you can find the videos for them below.
Things look (and sound) way better if you set the video to 1080HD.
Here are two videos from my EP, “GO”, from 2016.
GO is available on iTunes and Bandcamp.
My previous release is Marginal Street, also available on iTunes and Bandcamp.
